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On 30 December 2025, the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania published its judgment on the case No eA-820-552/2025 ,  ruling that the denial of the right to seek for international protection violates international and EU Law.

On 23 October 2023, the applicant was forcibly returned to the Belarus border by the Lithuanian authorities, denying him the right to seek asylum. The applicant was provided with water, food, warm clothes, footwear, and hygiene products, but he was not allowed to enter the territory of the Republic of Lithuania.

The Supreme Administrative Court held that ambiguities regarding the request for asylum must be interpreted in favour of the applicant and shifted the burden of proof to the authorities. Furthermore, having regard to the jurisprudence of the CJEU, the Supreme Court held that the officials acted unlawfully by forcibly removing the applicant from Lithuanian territory and denying him an opportunity to apply for international protection. The Court also recognised that there was a causal link between the suffering of the applicant and the actions of the Lithuanian authorities and found Lithuanian authorities responsible for this. However, it considered that there is no evidence that the violation of the applicant’s rights resulted in non-pecuniary damage within the meaning of Article 3 ECHR, leaving the question of the compensation to be decided. Finally, the Court held that national border regulations, including measures designed to prevent ‘instrumentalisation’, cannot legitimize state conduct that breach international obligations. It reaffirmed that duties under both international and EU law prevail over national law.

Unofficial translation by the EWLU team.

On 3 February 2026, the Third Section of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) published its judgment on the case of O.H. and Others v. Serbia (Application no. 57185/17). The case concerned the removal of Afghan applicants to Bulgaria after they had expressed their intention to seek asylum in Serbia.

On the 3 February 2017, the applicants were arrested and detained at the Gradina Border Police Station on the grounds of illegal border crossing. However, the Pirot Misdemeanour Court discontinued the proceedings recognising the intention of the applicants to seek asylum and issued asylum-intention certificates to them, serving as temporary residence permits. Despite this, the police transported the applicants to the Bulgarian border, confiscated their documents, and forced them to collectively cross the border at night.

In relation to the complaints under Article 4 Protocol 4, the Court recalled the two-tier test established in N.D. and N.T. v. Spain for assessing collective expulsions following unauthorised border crossings. It emphasised, however, that the present case differed. The applicants’ arbitrary removal by the police was entirely unrelated to their initial unauthorised entry into Serbian territory. Moreover, the Constitutional Court already found that the domestic authorities had expelled the applicants without a prior examination of their removal on an individual basis, which had violated the prohibition of collective expulsion in respect of the applicants. The Court therefore agreed with this assessment and found a violation of Article 4 of Protocol No. 4.

Regarding the removal of the applicants from Serbia under Article 3, the Court recalled the principle of non-refoulement inherent in Article 3 ECHR and reiterated that, where an asylum seeker is removed to a third country without an examination of the asylum claim on the merits, the authorities must assess whether the person will have access to an adequate asylum procedure there. As the Serbian authorities expelled the applicants without such assessment, the Court found a violation of the procedural limb of Article 3. It further noted that the manner of their removal, including being taken to the border during freezing conditions, amounted to a violation of the substantive limb of Article 3. By contrast, it found that, although the applicants had been held in inadequate detention conditions, the short duration of their detention did not reach the threshold of severity required under Article 3 and found this complaint manifestly ill-founded.

Concerning the lawfulness of the their detention under Article 5(1) ECHR, the Court noted that the applicants’ initial detention during the misdemeanour proceedings was lawful. However, their continued detention from the end of those proceedings until their expulsion from Serbia had no legal basis, as the applicants should have been taken to an asylum reception facility, but were instead driven to the border and expelled in an arbitrary manner. Hence, the Court found a violation of Article 5(1) of the Convention. Finally, the Court found a violation of Article 5(4) of the Convention, since the police failed to provide them with legal assistance effectively, hence, deprived them of the possibility to challenge the lawfulness of their detention.

The Court also decided not to examine the admissibility and merits of the complaints under Article 13, in conjunction with Articles 3 and Article 4 Protocol 4 of the Convention.